Phoenix
by Cosette Everdeen
Summary: "I reach forward and press my lips against his. We taste of heat, ashes, and misery." The fire and the aftermath of Gale and Katniss' relationship in four parts.
1. Heat

_ Heat._

* * *

Fire burns, they say.

They say it burns hot and fast, and it can devour anything from wood to fabric to skin in an instant. It is wild and ravages everything in its path, never failing to leave its mark. It is a million shades of bright red, blinding yellow, and striking orange. It is something that gives us food and warmth and life, but it can take those things away just as quickly as it gives them.

Fire is what cooks my dinner. Fire is what burns the coal we mine every day. Fire is what they dressed me in, and fire is what I felt when we kissed. The all-consuming feelings of passion and confusion and _oh what the hell_, because it was what we wanted after all, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

The first kiss was unexpected. The second, much later on, was soft and even sweet. The third was intentional and deep. The fourth turned into the fifth, and the sixth… It turned into at least the hundredth kiss, and I lost count after a while. But I did not lose any memories of the rest of that day. The images, the feelings, and the smells still linger in my senses long after the fact.

He was bigger and stronger than me by far, and I could still feel his scars as I moved my hands up his back. We had the house to ourselves and at last, he felt confident enough to remove the bandages. The scars were awful, deep, and still rancid with the memory of violence. Senseless violence that he had suffered for my sake. Maybe it was he who had been caught with a fat turkey in his hands, but it was I who received the deathblow, knowing that it was my fault.

But here, we did not want to dwell on that. It was many, many weeks later and everything had gone far past its boiling point, including our tempers. We exploded at one another for various reasons – his jealousy, my anger, his lust for revenge, my inability to put up with anyone – and the result was us tearing at one another's clothes. No one stormed out the door in a fury now; no, we were transfixed with each other and the only thing that could have stopped us was a bullet to the head. Fortunately, no such impediment came.

_"Katniss."_

By this point I had heard my name uttered by a thousand different voices. My mother, my father, my sister, Effie, Haymitch, Cinna, Caesar, Peeta, Rue, President Snow himself…but none of those voices had the effect that Gale's did. My name was something entirely different when it was uttered in that deep voice that was so good at comforting me. The way he said my name made shivers go up my spine and goosebumps form on my upper arms.

"Katniss…"

"Shh," I hissed, and after peeling his shirt off I pushed him towards the bed. I was far too eager and far too desperate for him to waste time with pillow talk. We knew that we loved one another – didn't we? Why else would we kiss or do something like_ this?_ Some might say the fire was too powerful for us to control, but I knew what I was doing. And I don't regret it to this day.

Whimpers and moans on my part, grunts and groans from his mouth, all making the act that much more exciting. Naked. He was naked on top of me and I was naked underneath him, and before I could be astonished at how great he looked, he kissed me. I was thankful for the distraction, because if he had paused to ask if I was okay, I might have chickened out at the sheer size of him.

"I don't—"

"What?"

"I—"

"Shush."

"Are you sure?"

"I said shush."

"_Katniss…"_

Back to square one. I was putty in his hands and he was molding me back into my old self. The Capitol had pruned me of every physical imperfection, the Arena had brought me to the brink of death, and after another airbrushing from the Capitol I was someone completely different. Now I was home in Twelve with Gale Hawthorne holding me, caressing me, and kissing my every freckle and birthmark. Things began to feel and taste and look like normal again. He was hot and woodsy and raw, and I would rather smell of him than of the Capitol's sickening rose soap. He was everything I wanted. The first time is special, because it can only happen once.

And it was the best moment of my life thus far.

He was so warm and soft, even gentle as he enveloped me, like a much-needed blanket after a night in the rain. He was careful but strong, loving but intentional. It was perfection, and I had never felt anything like it. It was even better than the lamb stew.

"Gale…oh…"

My mouth, while usually full of sarcasm and other bitter remarks, could now make nothing more than the most elementary human sounds. Oh, ah, mmm, ugh, and that most basic word, yes. _Yes. Yes. _Never no. It was yes, a hundred times over, maybe even a thousand, because I couldn't keep my mouth shut. Maybe that wasn't always a bad thing, then, because he seemed to enjoy it immensely. He would go a little faster and a little deeper, if my body would even allow him, and he kissed me after every whimper or moan I made.

"_Gale!"_

That set the both of us off into a sort of frenzy in which we attacked each other, clawing and grabbing and sucking and grunting, and the old mattress began to join in the chorus of groans. It was an out-of-body experience, it was every cliché in the book, and when I came to my senses again, he had collapsed on top of me and we were both attempting to recover.

There was a new kind of fire burning in me at that moment. It was deep inside of me and it was going to consume me, heart and soul, and I let it. I let it swallow me up without a second thought. Long ago, Gale had given into the same kind of fire for me. There was no going back for him after that first kiss so long ago, and now there was no going back for me.


	2. Ashes

_Ashes._

* * *

When I returned to Twelve after my rescue, Gale was there with me, watching from the hovercraft. He did not hound me like everyone else had been doing for the past year. I was alone as I wandered what was once my home, but there was still a pair of watchful gray eyes on me, from far away, for which I was thankful. Who knew what kind of breakdown I might suffer here? And Gale was much more qualified to deal with me than anyone.

The remains were among the worst things I had ever seen, up to that point. Bone, fabric, wood, a pair of crushed eyeglasses – all of them were parts of people's lives. People who I once saw and spoke to on a daily basis; families who ate my kills, children who went to school with me, and men who worked beside my father. All gone, all indiscernible amongst the piles of charred rubble. I turned to look at the hovercraft, and it was all I could do to hold back tears when I stepped on the pile of ash that used to be our old home. The new house in the Victors' Village was untouched, but I decided to save that for later. This, the land that was ours before the Reaping, had a special kind of innocence about it that was now destroyed.

But weren't all of us corrupted now? Blood on our hands, tears obstructing our vision, choking on the ashes of how things used to be. All of us who had been in the Games and had the luck (or misfortune) to survive them, and those of our friends and families who had witnessed our dramatic changes – all of us had seen and felt and done things we rather would not have.

I couldn't stand there for long; it was too painful. The fire had turned on me, and instead of fueling my survival, had destroyed everything. I began the trek to my new home, white and untouched, but lacking of the memories that our home in the Seam had. Most of my memories of this house were, and still are, bad: the visit from Snow, the constant feeling of being watched, the paranoia and stress I was suffering, and the pain my family endured for my sake. The pain that nearly killed Gale…

Standing in the doorway of my home, one of the only things still standing in Twelve, I knew there was one place I had to go, if nowhere else. I went to my bedroom without so much as a cursory glance at anything else in the house, and when I saw it just as I had left it on Reaping Day weeks before, my mind was flooded with everything at once.

My mother's hands trembling slightly as she offered cookies to Snow. Cinna's array of beautiful wedding dresses. My styling team chirping over me as they dolled me up for the camera. And Gale, whimpering softly as my mother applied snow to his bloody, sizzling back. Gale, whose side I did not leave until I absolutely had to. Gale, who did not kiss me for that second time, but _I _kissed _him._ And not because I pitied him.

The bed where I gave him everything, and I began to understand just why he felt so strongly about Peeta and the Games, and everything else that had taken me away from him. For five years we had been inseparable and the town was placing bets on how soon we would get married. Only a matter of months ago did I let him know exactly how I felt, and not with words, which I was always so ineloquent with. He knew that I loved him. I knew that he loved me.

When I felt a pair of hands touch my shoulders, I did not flinch. They were familiar in the best of ways, and they held me close to his body without question.

"It's gone." My voice was a whisper, a little raw from not speaking for a short while, and the smoky air had caused my throat to close up. That, and the threat of tears, which I had successfully fended off until that point. "I didn't believe you at first."

"I did what I could," he murmured.

"You saved nine hundred people, Gale. That's no small feat," I raised my eyebrows at him but still kept my arms around his torso.

"Yeah, but I couldn't save you. From the Reaping. I couldn't have volunteered for you, Katniss. It would have saved us all a bunch of grief."

As much as I wanted to give him a reply, something along the lines of "Well, you couldn't if you wanted to, since we both know you're not a girl," it was neither the time nor the place. Something about the two of us was gone; something had changed between my second Reaping and now. Hell, several things had changed since my _first_ Reaping. The awkward physical distance we were forced to keep whenever we were not alone, and even when we were, it was hard not to feel like a certain pair of snakelike eyes were on us, waiting to strike. The "cousin" story that had only made my act with Peeta ten times harder to keep up. The reduction of hunting days down to one every week, and the painful anticipation until those Sundays. The lack of shared things to talk about when we were in the woods. The silence that filled our ears and our mouths, but never our minds. No, we were never without our thoughts, but with our explosive attitudes and messy ways of confessing things to one another, how could one of us say what was on our mind without igniting the other?

An angry Katniss or Gale was nothing fun to deal with. The tension had built exponentially since that most recent Reaping, and I could sense that we were nearing our breaking points even then.

"It wasn't up to you to save me," I mumbled. "You're here. You took care of my family, and that's all I ever asked of you. Please don't…don't think that any of this is because of you. Only the good things are…Only the best." I leaned up on my toes to kiss his lips, and while he kissed me back, this thousand-and-fortieth kiss was different. It was not hot and all-consuming; it was still warm, but just barely so. It was much cooler than our usual caresses, and while any kiss from him was better than none at all, I preferred how we used to be. But that was fading fast, giving way to some other force that was going to put us out, no matter how hard we resisted.


	3. Misery

_Misery._

* * *

The first figure I recognized out of the blurry, morphling-induced mess was the very last person I wanted to see. Tall, dark, and intimidating in the doorway of my hospital room, he was still Gale Hawthorne. Still the teenage boy from District Twelve. Still my best friend, my accomplice, my kindred spirit. Or was he?

I stared at him, unblinking. Traces of smoke and flame, smelling like burnt hair and clothing, surrounded him. I honestly couldn't tell if they were real or yet another nightmarish illusion. Sometimes I heard her voice crying out my name, and then just an awful high-pitched ringing in my ears. My baby sister had been torn violently from me, and he had the nerve to come here and see me, the person who had manufactured that very bomb.

I wonder if he knew what those little pieces and wires would do someday. When he was building it, did he ever think of who or what it might destroy? I knew that Gale would never purposely, knowingly kill a child, but ever since the incident at the Nut, I had felt uneasy about him.

The closer he got to my bed, the more I wanted to crawl away. I wanted out of my restraints so I could hide in my quiet, tiny closet back in Thirteen. I longed for the privacy that had been mine before all this happened, especially now, when no one's words were doing anything to comfort me.

"Katniss?"

There he went again, saying my name. If this was his idea of repairing what we had together, it wasn't working very well. All I heard when he said my name was the small echo of my sister's voice. Confused, surprised, relieved to see me alive…and then gone forever.

I rolled over onto my side, facing away from him. _Not now. Please not now._ But Gale was even more stubborn than I, so he sat in the chair by my bed. I could feel his eyes on the back of my head, and then I understood why Peeta strangled me upon our reunion. We were both poisoned to believe the person we loved had hurt us so deeply, so irreparably, that it would be better if they were out of our world than still in it.

No matter how hard I tried, I could not shake that burning rage inside of me. I could not rid myself of the desire to completely eradicate him from my life. The bad things I held him responsible for – the bombing of the Nut, the war that raged on in my heart, the death of my sister – would all be gone, if I had my way. No more crying for Soldier Everdeen. But if I erased Gale from my life, what would be left? Peeta was hopeless. My mother had sunk into depression again. Prim, Finnick, Rue, Cinna, Boggs - all dead. I have no friends other than Gale.

If he were to leave me forever, I wouldn't have the kiss in the woods. I wouldn't have the thousands of smiles, laughs, embraces, and thoughts we shared. I would have nothing left of the boy who had helped me survive for years, and who had been my only real friend. All I would have left are ashes.

"I'm…I'm so sorry, Katniss," he whispered. He moved closer to me, and this time I didn't budge. There was a slight trembling in his voice that I had only heard once before, when I kissed him while he was healing from the whipping. A sniff confirmed my suspicions, and that was the second time I ever heard Gale cry.

I rolled onto my back and stared at him, confused and hurting everywhere. He looked as handsome as ever, now with battle scars that matched mine, and the tears that lingered in his eyes but didn't fall just yet were enough to make my heart lurch. He was beyond trying to be tough now, but I wasn't. Not just yet. I had been strong every moment until now. He leaned in to say something, something about Prim and how he had done everything in his power to protect her, but the spark inside of me had ignited into a full-fledged blaze. A disembodied voice that vaguely resembled mine, hoarse and worn, screamed and yelled and cried all at the same time. None of the words were distinctively English, except perhaps _no._ Over and over again, kicking and slapping him, attempting to bite him, thrashing in my bed – I was an animal unleashed.

He didn't fight me. All he did was hold my upper arms, his grip gentle but strong, and he tried to look me in the eyes. I was having none of it. The shattered remains of what had once been my sane, peaceful mind screamed _mutt! Mutt! Mutt!_

_ "Katniss…Katniss…"_

Mutts hissing my name. _Katniss. _The stench of roses. My hands covered in the blood of everyone who had died because of me. Snow's smirk and the mystery of whether or not he had been lying to me all along. The refusal to believe anything that anyone told me in an attempt to make things better. _Katniss. _The old man who whistled. The flowers in the meadow. The crunch of bones beneath my feet in Twelve. Watching myself get shot on television. The girl in the lemon-colored coat. The finger-sized bruises on my neck. Playing Crazy Cat. Crazy cat, crazy catnip, crazy Katniss_. Katniss._

A few nurses had been alerted to my tantrum and came running into the room. They insisted that Gale get out of the way so that I could be sedated. I stopped writhing around long enough to see his face, which I had scratched up pretty badly, but he didn't seem to care. He held the nurses off and all was quiet for a moment. He leaned in, pushed my hair out of my crazed eyes, and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead.

"Goodbye, Katniss," he whispered. I was stunned as a couple of tears fell onto my forehead, and I realized they were his. He pulled away and the nurses parted to let him leave. I whimpered and weakly tugged at my restraints, but that wasn't going to stop him.

This was what I had wanted, wasn't it? To be rid of him and all the trouble he had caused? To finally stop the fire that we had made together, and that had gotten totally out of control? People were dead because of me, because of him, because of us both. _Yes, it's good he goes. You can't be around him anymore. He's nothing but trouble._

The morphling entered my bloodstream from a needle that I didn't even feel in all of my grief. Softer images now. Hiding in the fur shop, riding on the hovercraft, kissing in Thirteen, kissing in the woods, kissing in my house and everywhere else. With every image that flickered into my brain for a fraction of a second, there was a small stab of pain that got worse as I slipped into dreamless sleep. It was the pain of letting go, and it was worse than any wound I had ever sustained. He was gone. I was alone with the remains – no, the ruins of us. And it hurt like hell.


	4. Rise

_Rise._

* * *

In my dreams there are fragments of a living nightmare. Sometimes I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as my sister's cries reach my ears, sometimes I wake up crying. Whenever I do, I am not alone. He is there with his arms around me, petting my hair, sitting there in silence because he never needs to ask. He has never asked what the nightmares are about, because he was there with me. I am not the only one with scars, nor the only soldier who returned home with memories that will forever haunt me. Memories that will always keep me asking _why_, or _what could I have done?_

Yes, I could have made so many other decisions, and maybe more people would be alive then. Cinna, Finnick, Rue, Madge, Boggs, Prim… Prim. My baby sister comes to me in dreams, both waking and sleeping, and at first they were on an entirely different level of torture. Lately they are peaceful – she finds me in the meadow and smiles, her braids bouncing, her blouse untucked, Lady and Buttercup trailing close behind her. She giggles and smothers me with hugs and kisses, and it's during dreams like these that I do not want to wake up.

I rise from my bed anyway, and then I am reminded that life isn't so bad after all. We came back to each other, Gale and I; I broke down and forgave him before going back to Twelve and we took one another back. He quit the fancy government job in Two faster than he had taken it, and we moved back home. Two years after I attempted to maul him in the hospital, I am sleeping comfortably in his arms, and he says that I am doing much better. I sleep through the night three times in a row, and he grins and says this is all his doing. I should have been sleeping beside him from the start.

This morning, I wake up long after him. I roll over and rest my cheek upon his broad chest, both of us naked because we sleep best that way.

_"Sleep," Gale would say and wink. "Yeah, that's it."_

"Morning," I murmur, and the tweeting chorus of little birds just outside the window confirm the time of day. They are always out there learning to fly in the morning. Their mother is patient and gentle, helping the babies when they fall out of the nest and must learn how to return home.

He smiles; I do not see it, but I feel it. He's so warm and comfortable that I feel my eyelids droop and my body wants to go right back to sleep. "Hey," he whispers and brings me back to the world at hand. He tilts my chin up and kisses me softly, and it's with this simple but wonderful gesture that I feel the heat rise in my belly once more.

Mornings like these are our favorite. We don't think about anything or anyone else. All I care about in these moments is him and how we fit together in every sense. This time I am on top of him and he thinks this is very convenient. He picks me up by my hips and my arms are around his neck in an instant. We disappear into each other like we did some years ago, when I was only seventeen and still so clueless about the world outside of Twelve. He has been by my side for years and I know he isn't going to leave. Not now, after we have suffered through so much. Together we have been struggling children, awkward teenagers, estranged "cousins", confused lovers, arguing hotheads, separated friends, scarred soldiers, and the collective ashes of the greatest love I ever knew.

The thing about ashes, though, is that they are not the end. To most people, ashes signify death and destruction; the ruins of something that was once beautiful, but could not withstand the test of fire and time. And that is true of us, as well. We had every potential and belonged together, but circumstances far beyond the control of two teenagers tore us into fragments and scattered us to the wind.

To others, those people who can look beyond death, ashes are nothing more than a temporary state. These people see the creation that can burst forth from the ruins and defy all else. This beautiful thing has glory and power unrivaled by any other creature on Earth. It is life itself, the resurrection of things that are not meant to die. It is every good memory and emotion that we shared, proving that even a dark and bloody war could not keep us from burning on. We rise from the ashes just as the phoenix does.

And so will our child, whenever she is born. For now, I carry her inside of me, where nothing can hurt her. And Gale carries me in his heart, where no one can hurt me. We protect one another. We always have, and always will.

Greasy Sae sees us on occasion when we bring her game, still a tradition after all this time. All she does is smile and shake her head, and sometimes she'll whisper to anyone who's listening, "See? I told you. I told you it'd be them."

Funny how they knew. They knew before I did that I would be with him.

The boy and the girl from Twelve got married. The children without fathers, the children who had been forced to grow up far too fast. They lost many friends along the way, they even lost each other, but they always came back in the end.

Always.

* * *

_AN: The end! I hope that you enjoyed my first attempt at a published Galeniss story, even if it was short. Your reviews have made me smile and I appreciate each and every single person who read this, reviewed or not. I plan to write much more Gale and Katniss in the future. If you're looking for something else to read now, might I suggest my own story (shameless plug, sorry), "For Everything a Reason"? Also, my best friend kelsey731 has an excellent collection of work and I highly suggest her ongoing series starring Finnick, Seneca, and a _very_ original character in "Disarm" and its sequel "Undertow". God bless, I hope to read more of your lovely comments and suggestions in the future :)_


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